Press Releases

News viewers turned to BBC in 2007

News viewers and users turned to the BBC in 2007 for the latest stories with both BBC News 24 and the BBC One Ten O'Clock News performing particularly strongly.

All the BBC's main news bulletins grew their average audience on last year.

The Ten O'Clock News grew its audience from 2006 and pulled in an average of nearly five million viewers a night while BBC News 24 increased its lead over Sky News and now has over 50% more viewers than its rival.

Year-to-date figures show an average of 4.9 million viewers watched the Ten each night – up from 4.6 million in 2006 – and the bulletin enjoyed an average audience share of 23.3%.

On 16 November 2007 – the day Jane Tanner, a friend of Madeline McCann's parents, spoke out – over eight million viewers tuned in to watch the Ten O'Clock News.

BBC News 24, the UK's most-watched news channel, continued to increase its reach.

Figures show that, on average, during 2007 News 24 reached 6.6 million viewers each week, increasing its lead over Sky News which had a reach of 4.3 million.

This is up on the average for the past two years – 5.6 million in 2006 and 5.2 million in 2005.

Viewers once again turned to BBC News 24 in times of crisis and for big breaking news stories.

Audiences peaked in 2007 at 8.2 million in the week ending 1 July for the bomb attack on Glasgow Airport and at 7.9 million for the story of the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann in the week ending 13 May.

The BBC News website remains the UK's most popular online news site, attracting an average weekly reach of 13.8 million users globally (over the period January to September 2007).

With continued strong growth in the year to date and 20% up on weekly users the BBC News website now routinely serves more than one billion pages per month.

In terms of the other bulletins, the BBC One Six O'Clock News continues to be the leading early evening news programme, watched by an average of 4.2 million viewers, with an audience share of 24.5%.

Viewing figures peaked at 6.1 million on the 18 January this year with the story on storms hitting the UK.

The BBC One One O'Clock News remains most viewers' lunchtime news bulletin of choice with an audience share of 41.0% and it achieved an average reach of 2.7 million, up from 2.6 million in 2006 and peaking at 4.6 million viewers on 8 February, also as bad weather affected the UK.

There was also strong growth for BBC Parliament for 2007.

There has been a 29% growth year-on-year in monthly reach and the average 3+ minute reach is for the first time over one million (including the recesses).

Peaks for 2007 included the Party Conferences with 1.3 million and the Budget with 1.2 million.

BBC Breakfast (BBC One and BBC News 24) continues its lead over GMTV, with average viewing figures of 1.05 million per programme compared to 0.977 million for GMTV, and a share of 29% compared to 26.5% for GMTV.

Notes to Editors

Figures are based on the latest data, covering the period from January to November 2007 except where indicated.